12 Signs That We Are Getting Dangerously Close To War With Syria

Are you ready for another war? Now that Barack Obama and most of the other major leaders of the western world are publicly calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, we are getting dangerously close to war with Syria. It is not going to happen next week, and it is almost certainly not going to happen next month. But right now the U.S. government is going down the exact same road that it went down with Libya. There is all kinds of talk about how Assad has lost “legitimacy”, “human rights violations” have been declared, sanctions have been imposed and Syrian government assets have been frozen. But just like with Gaddafi, Assad has no intention of ever stepping down. He is not going to resign just because the U.S. and the EU ask him too. The opposition in Syria is certainly not strong enough to remove Assad, so just about the only way that it will be accomplished is through direct military action. Right now the U.S. and the EU are basically painting themselves into a corner with their bold declarations about Assad. But when the time comes will they be willing to risk starting World War III in order to remove him from power?

So what is all the hubbub about? Well, the Syrian government has been cracking down on the recent protest movement really hard. Some human rights groups estimate that at least 2,000 people have been killed and at least 10,000 have been arrested since the protests began last March.

And as we have seen in Libya, the U.S. and the EU are now willing to conduct military operations in foreign nations in order to protect civilians from their own governments. The precedent for a “humanitarian” military operation has already been set.

But with Syria things are going to be different. For one thing, Syria has much closer ties with both Russia and China than Libya did. Russia and China are not about to approve any military operation against Syria.

And the Assad regime is much stronger than the Gaddafi dictatorship. In Libya, if Gaddafi gets killed the game will more or less be over. In Syria, taking down Assad will not end things.

Right now it appears that Assad is trying to cool things down. He has told the United Nations that operations against protesters have stopped.

But that didn’t stop a chorus of leaders in the U.S. and the EU from declaring today that Assad has lost “legitimacy” and that he must step down.

The Obama administration and the EU have now put Assad on the same level as Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. There is no going back. They aren’t going to turn around 6 months from now and say that now it is okay for Assad to stay in power.

They have crossed a line and there is no going back. It is the same roadmap that was used leading up to the airstrikes in Libya.

The relationship between the western world and the Assad regime will never be the same again. You can count on that.

The following are 12 signs that we are getting dangerously close to war with Syria….